Jebediah Bilodeau |
A love story
by John Knapp |
Jebediah Bilodeau
A brief synopsis
Due to a dreadful natural disaster, two teenage boys are brought together.
After a rocky meeting, they quickly become good friends and spend much
of their time just doing things that teenage boys like to do.
Over time they develop strong bonds – a brotherly love – and come to rely on
each other for guidance as they slowly evolve into manhood.
Part of that evolution is the discovery that girls are very attractive and
appealing specimens of humanity. Emotions stemming from this realization
bring complexity in their lives they weren’t expecting.
This story, seen through the eyes of one of the boys, takes us through
a very complicated part of their lives as they mature and consider
where their lives might take them after they finish high school.
Perhaps they will pursue further education. Perhaps they will begin
their careers. Perhaps they will discover true and passionate love.
Perhaps all three.
Their road is rough in parts, happy and easy in parts,
and also tragic in parts.
After a rocky meeting, they quickly become good friends and spend much
of their time just doing things that teenage boys like to do.
Over time they develop strong bonds – a brotherly love – and come to rely on
each other for guidance as they slowly evolve into manhood.
Part of that evolution is the discovery that girls are very attractive and
appealing specimens of humanity. Emotions stemming from this realization
bring complexity in their lives they weren’t expecting.
This story, seen through the eyes of one of the boys, takes us through
a very complicated part of their lives as they mature and consider
where their lives might take them after they finish high school.
Perhaps they will pursue further education. Perhaps they will begin
their careers. Perhaps they will discover true and passionate love.
Perhaps all three.
Their road is rough in parts, happy and easy in parts,
and also tragic in parts.
How Jebediah Bilodeau came to life!
This story did not begin it's life as a love story. It began in 2011 as a number of unrelated ramblings by me, a distraught caregiver tending for my wife and her sufferings due to Alzheimer's. I needed a release from the stresses of caring for Donna. When 'Home Help' came for a few hours each week, I grabbed my laptop and headed to the local library. There, I just pounded away on the keyboard until my fingers went numb, writing a few happy stories about Caleb and Jeb, two teenage boys, coming to know and like each other - doing things like Snigglin' Catfish. Only later did I look back and see those ramblings as having some continuity; some possible overall story content.
As the stories came together and evolved into a single book, relationships between the principal characters also evolved and grew. In those early days I didn't write anything significant about Marly but she was in the back of my mind right from the start, and I always knew she would enter - 'stage-left' - a few chapters on.
Marly's arrival gave me a personal emotional problem. Love! How was I going to put 'love' into words on a page? I continued to write surrounding chapters on various topics but whenever it came to a place that my characters wanted to express their feelings for each other, I was blocked.
I began to realize that, if I were going to finish 'Jebediah Bilodeau', including a growing love that Caleb had for Marly, I was going to have to release some of my own inner feelings and inhibitions. How was I to that? I was able to invent the scene and create the event, but how was I to express the character's emotions. Emotions have to be real, and I suffer from a basic problem here. I'm a man! Sensitive perspectives on sex and love are very difficult for most men to understand, let alone make public - me included. What should I do? Give up?
I spent quite a few months dreaming and worrying about it. Slowly, slowly, I started to think of my character's emotional problems as being mine. Maybe they paralleled my life a little? Everything got tangled up between my imagination and my relationship with Donna over the years. What had happened to the love between Donna and me? Did it relate to my fictional characters? Remarkably, from her care-home, Donna came to my rescue. Alzheimer's had caused her to regress to her teenage years regarding her emotions towards me, her love. She became much more open and expressive in her feelings than we ever were in the past. I learned a lesson from that. I practised a similar open expressiveness when talking to her of my love. What a difference I felt. Donna too! She began to smile again. Since that time, I have been able to write about our emotions and our love in my continuing journals about her. (See Donna's Story, above.)
About a year ago, I began to find ways to allow my fictional characters to express their love for each other in a sensitive way. At least, that is what I thought I was doing. How arrogant I was. How does a seventy-five year old man expect to be able to write sensitively about the lives of teenagers; their joys and worries as they navigate those complicated feelings of 'first love'. Even more! What makes me think I can describe those feelings from the perspective of a teenage girl? I am old now, but I was once a teenage boy, and even then I didn't understand those feelings - not even my own feelings - let alone those feelings from a girl's point of view. Let's face it. What man does? I needed help!
More to come when I have a chance to update this.
When Jebediah Bilodeau is published, I hope you enjoy reading it. For the present, please enjoy the first couple of chapters.
Is it possible to write a truly fictional novel that doesn't contain at least one semblance of the character of the author and those around him? I don't know the answer to that question. If I did, I probably wouldn't say.
As the stories came together and evolved into a single book, relationships between the principal characters also evolved and grew. In those early days I didn't write anything significant about Marly but she was in the back of my mind right from the start, and I always knew she would enter - 'stage-left' - a few chapters on.
Marly's arrival gave me a personal emotional problem. Love! How was I going to put 'love' into words on a page? I continued to write surrounding chapters on various topics but whenever it came to a place that my characters wanted to express their feelings for each other, I was blocked.
I began to realize that, if I were going to finish 'Jebediah Bilodeau', including a growing love that Caleb had for Marly, I was going to have to release some of my own inner feelings and inhibitions. How was I to that? I was able to invent the scene and create the event, but how was I to express the character's emotions. Emotions have to be real, and I suffer from a basic problem here. I'm a man! Sensitive perspectives on sex and love are very difficult for most men to understand, let alone make public - me included. What should I do? Give up?
I spent quite a few months dreaming and worrying about it. Slowly, slowly, I started to think of my character's emotional problems as being mine. Maybe they paralleled my life a little? Everything got tangled up between my imagination and my relationship with Donna over the years. What had happened to the love between Donna and me? Did it relate to my fictional characters? Remarkably, from her care-home, Donna came to my rescue. Alzheimer's had caused her to regress to her teenage years regarding her emotions towards me, her love. She became much more open and expressive in her feelings than we ever were in the past. I learned a lesson from that. I practised a similar open expressiveness when talking to her of my love. What a difference I felt. Donna too! She began to smile again. Since that time, I have been able to write about our emotions and our love in my continuing journals about her. (See Donna's Story, above.)
About a year ago, I began to find ways to allow my fictional characters to express their love for each other in a sensitive way. At least, that is what I thought I was doing. How arrogant I was. How does a seventy-five year old man expect to be able to write sensitively about the lives of teenagers; their joys and worries as they navigate those complicated feelings of 'first love'. Even more! What makes me think I can describe those feelings from the perspective of a teenage girl? I am old now, but I was once a teenage boy, and even then I didn't understand those feelings - not even my own feelings - let alone those feelings from a girl's point of view. Let's face it. What man does? I needed help!
More to come when I have a chance to update this.
When Jebediah Bilodeau is published, I hope you enjoy reading it. For the present, please enjoy the first couple of chapters.
Is it possible to write a truly fictional novel that doesn't contain at least one semblance of the character of the author and those around him? I don't know the answer to that question. If I did, I probably wouldn't say.
